Dean Baker is usually good for insightful and spot on analysis in regards to our corporate economy. He delivers again with this essay on Michael Moore’s film “SiCKO” and the dismal state (and causes) of America’s health care system, and the fraudulent and hypocritical claims towards ‘market choice’ that private insurance companies hide their bloated and inefficient (though personally lucrative) processes behind.

The pundits are working overtime trying to defuse the message from “SiCKO,” Michael Moore’s new film. They are trying to convince the public that the United States could not possibly do what every other rich country (and even some not so rich countries) have managed to do: guarantee their people decent health care.

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This experience is important. We cannot afford universal health care if we don’t bring the costs of the US system more in line with the rest of the world. We currently pay more than twice as much per person, with no obvious benefit in terms of outcome. The key to creating a more efficient system is to have a government-run system comparable to the traditional Medicare system.

But, we don’t have to pontificate about American values and the role of government - leave the silly pseudo-philosophical debates out of it. This is a straight dollars-and-cents question that can be determined by the market. Give people a choice and let them decide whether they want to be insured through the government-run system or want to stick with private health care providers.

The pundits have managed to flip reality on its head. It is the health insurance industry and their partners-in-crime, the pharmaceutical industry, that are scared of the market and competition.

Read The Full Essay

Update: Paul Krugman nails it again with this piece on the criminal state of America’s health care system and the immoral lengths the specially benefitting minority will go to maintain it with his essay Health Care Terror

This might be one of the more craven and cowardly things I’ve seen a local government do in awhile. Corporate welfare on full display (and somewhat reminiscent of how governments will cut 10 cents off gas taxes to try to offset cartel increases of 30 cents, so we subsidize US and Arab oil billionaires and have crummy roads). Rather than get something to stay in the community and make a big deal of the need for real competition, this Township is now subsidizing Comcast. At least poor little Comcast won’t go to bed hungry tonight.

An Open Letter To Kevin DeWine and Steve Austria

Kevin/Steve,

As my State Rep and State Senator, I would be very interested in your perspectives on the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicle’s practice of including DISCOVER and CHASE promotional materials in annual vehicle registration notifications. From my perspective, I don’t think taxpayers should be footing the bill for private corporation direct mail marketing campaigns, and frankly, I’m disappointed that you haven’t done a better job of overseeing the Ohio BMV.

Article 8, Section 4 of the Ohio Constitution reads, “The credit of the state shall not in any manner, be given or loaned to, or in aid of, any individual, association or corporation whatever, nor shall the state ever hereafter become a joint owner, or stockholder, in a company or association in this state, or elsewhere, formed for any purpose whatever.”

Do you agree or disagree that it is inappropriate for state government to use taxpayer dollars to aid private corporations in this manner? If you agree, what do you plan to do about it?

Otherwise would you be so kind as to explain how this practice fits into state government’s roles and responsibilities as outlined in the Ohio Constitution?

- John Mitchel, Beavercreek, OH
www.patriotpressohio.com

Fragile principle or oxymoron?

Michel Rocard, a former Prime Minister of France, takes the issue on with some insight and lucidity (by American standards, at least, considering these are not the types of questions usually discussed on the evening cable talk shows. Hmmm, wonder why?)

Henry Ford, builder of the American automobile (1863-1947), was not only the world’s biggest industrialist for fifteen years. He was also one of the saviors of the capitalism that had been severely struck by the 1929 crisis: He invented the policy of high salaries that assured consumption’s comeback. That indicates the importance of his intuitions.

On various occasions, he asserted that capitalism could not live and develop without respecting a rigorous ethic. In his opinion, it was bad - morally - for the head of a company to pay himself more than 40 times his employees’ average salary. He followed this rule himself. The key to this conclusion maintains that capitalism is assuredly the form of social organization that guarantees the greatest margin of freedom to all actors in the system. That observation obviously does not hold in the absence of a high degree of self-limitation and self-control.

Now it is clear, as this twenty-first century begins, that something has cracked somewhere in the system.

It sure has. And all of it is ‘perfectly legal.’

Read The Complete Essay

A good example of what it means to have a society operating by ‘market forces.’

The site is Turkish but the video is British.

Watch The Video

Paul Krugman, ever the foghorn that he is cutting through the smoke and mirrors, further dissects the scam that is private corporate health insurance racket.

Is the health insurance business a racket? Yes, literally - or so say two New York hospitals, which have filed a racketeering lawsuit against UnitedHealth Group and several of its affiliates.

I don’t know how the case will turn out. But whatever happens in court, the lawsuit illustrates perfectly the dysfunctional nature of our health insurance system, a system in which resources that could have been used to pay for medical care are instead wasted in a zero-sum struggle over who ends up with the bill.

Read The Full Article

Paul Krugman nails it regarding the idiocy of ‘market incentives’ solving the health insurance crisis afflicting the nation.

Going without health insurance isn’t like deciding to rent an apartment instead of buying a house. It’s a terrifying experience, which most people endure only if they have no alternative. The uninsured don’t need an “incentive” to buy insurance; they need something that makes getting insurance possible.

Read the complete article Here

Bob Herbert has a follow up piece on the desperate debt cycle many are taking on in their efforts to meet ever-increasing medical bills and insurance premiums.

A disturbing new report shows that with health care costs continuing their sharp rise, low- and middle-income patients are reaching for their credit cards with alarming frequency to cover treatment that they otherwise would be unable to afford.

This medical debt, to be paid off in many cases at sky-high interest rates, is being loaded onto consumer debt that is already at dangerously high levels. Many families have been crushed by the load, driven from their homes, forced into bankruptcy, and worse.

Read “Your MasterCard or Your Life” by Bob Herbert.

Pretty good essay from a poster on The Daily Kos on the true logic and justice behind progressive taxation policies.

One of the most illegitimate and yet seductive arguments the Republicans have is, “Why should people who have or make more money have to pay more taxes?” This is the argument that underlies the call for a flat tax, for an elimination of estate taxes, and even for reductions in capital gains taxes.

It took me quite a few years to understand why a progressive tax system is fair and reasonable and why the Republican tax arguments are nonsense.  My goal here is to share the knowledge I’ve gained by discussing a bit of history, a bit of political theory, and quite a bit of miscellany.  

Read The Full Post

Bill Moyers describes the shameful state of education in America. He delivered these remarks in October of 2006 to the Council of Great City Schools, an organization of the nation’s largest urban public school systems.

“Education should be the centerpiece of a great and diverse America made stronger by equality and shared prosperity. It has instead become the epitome of public neglect, perpetuated by a class divide so permeated by race that it mocks the bedrock principles of the American Promise.”

Moyers’ analysis is excellent for many reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that it goes beyond the discussion of education unto itself and analyzes some of the underlying core issues involved in the continuing degradation of America’s public education system, most notably the class war being driven by the economic elites of this nation against the very idea of the commons and a shared public good for all our citizenry.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in and/or involved in America’s educational system, or for that matter anyone interested in the future state of our national health and well-being.

Read Bill Moyers’ piece in full here on TomPaine.com

Bloody Markets
By Jim Bliss
The Quiet Road
August 15, 2006

The problem, as is so often the case, is free markets. You see, they are maybe possibly perhaps a half-decent way of handling the distribution of new computer games, for instance. But they’re an awful way of dealing with essential non-renewable resources. Seriously awful. In fact, if you had to design a system with the express purpose of bungling resource management you’d probably arrive at something a lot like free market economics.

We’ve arrived at a system which provides as motivation for the production and supply of essential non-renewable resources; the generation of profit. And it bestows the right to choose how the resource should be consumed onto those wealthy enough to purchase it.

I see it as being somewhat akin to a national blood bank / transfusion service being run exclusively for the profit of those who own the system. And to make matters worse, there’s a cabal of millionaires who get their kicks buying blood to bathe in. I mean, let’s be honest, there’s no reason at all for a defender of the free-market principle to object to that.

Certainly if millionaires are buying blood to bathe in, it’ll raise the price and - presumably - generate a greater supply. But this is a finite resource we’re talking about. Over 10% of the population has “needle phobia”. Another 10 - 15% are barred from giving blood because of various contamination issues. And health and safety recommends that nobody should donate blood more than once a month (restricted to 4 times a year in many countries). It’s a finite resource and increased demand will not generate an increased supply beyond the limits imposed by nature.

So first our hypothetical cabal raises the price beyond the capability of the NHS to pay for transfusions, then it raises it beyond the capability of most private patients to pay. Do proponents of the free market believe this is an acceptable situation? Is it OK for rich people to deliberately waste a resource vital to sustain the lives of those with less purchasing power? Is it still OK when it’s your ten-year-old daughter dying in hospital because Peter Stringfellow, Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Richard Branson want to sit in a bath of blood?

Of course, nobody bathes in blood. Leastways nobody you’d invite round for dinner. But I was drawing an analogy, not suggesting that Richard Branson actually has a blood fetish (though you do have to wonder about Lloyd-Webber.. nothing would surprise me about him). And it’s an analogy that can be applied more directly than perhaps you’d imagine.

There are rather worrying reports emerging from some of the poorer African nations; Zimbabwe in particular. These reports are unconfirmed and I’ve only read them (thus far) on peak oil mailing lists (so I’m not using them as “evidence”; merely illustrative examples of how market forces will affect essential resource distribution. i.e. if this is not happening now, then it will be soon). As the recent rises in oil price kicked in, the poorest nations have been forced to cut back on the quantity they imported. This is what free markets are all about, after all.

However, in Zimbabwe this is resulting in a major curtailing of the - already decrepit - ambulance service*. People are dying right now because western consumers are willing to pay more for petrol to drive their SUVs to the hypermarket than the Zimbabwean health service can afford to pay to keep their vehicles on the road.

Bloody markets, eh?

And yes, yes, I’m aware that the unique political disaster occurring in Zimbabwe is a major factor in the collapse of the health service (and just about everything else). However I trust you’re smart enough to realise that merely explains why Zimbabweans can’t afford to fuel their ambulances. Saying “Oh! Oh! Mugabe is a Bad Man!” loudly while sticking your fingers in your ears doesn’t actually redress the basic injustice that people are dying for want of a global resource while others are frivolously squandering it.